


Kiss

by nerdrumple



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Enchanted Forest AU, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-12
Updated: 2017-08-12
Packaged: 2018-12-14 13:45:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,943
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11784399
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nerdrumple/pseuds/nerdrumple
Summary: Belle has known these woods all her life, and roses have never grown in the middle of the path - neither have strange men appeared when you pluck their petals.





	Kiss

**Author's Note:**

> Just a lil story that came to me in the night while obsessing over my otp, as one does.
> 
> There’s an itty bitty Pride & Prejudice reference in here.

There was a rose in the middle of the path.

Belle gripped her cloak, and sucked in a breath, long and deep, letting the forest in. She released the breath, low and steady, the forest leaving, and she eyed the rose in front of her.

It was terribly out of place. All things bright and lush were on the edges of the path, everything worn and trampled was in the middle. A road of dirt and pine needles, frequently walked, frequently traveled, and meant for nothing green that reached for the sun. The rose was fresh and new, and she gripped her cloak again.

She loved these woods, and walked them frequently. Her castle was grand and her bed was lovely and her library held its own quiet secrets but oh, she loved these woods. She knew them well and had spent years in them, growing from a child into the woman she was now, and never had she seen a rose in the middle of this path.

She knelt down. The rose was tall and straight, rich and thick with petals, like it’d be weighty if she cupped it between her palms. A beautiful rose, so red it was almost black. Its petals velvet and inviting. One fell, suddenly, and she caught it before it wafted to the ground, caressing it between her thumb and forefinger. Pretty thing it was, delectable and making her lips part. Something stirred in her belly, and before she really knew what she was doing, she brought the petal to her lips, letting its velvet caress her there.

“Lovely red, that is.”

Belle blinked.

There was a man in the middle of the path.

No one had been standing there before. Much like the rose, he looked terribly out of place, the wide berth of the road around him quiet with no disturbance in the dirt to indicate his entrance.

Belle rose, blinking several times more before speaking.

“Red?” she said.

Aside from a smirk, she couldn’t quite see the man’s face. It was either too bright in the sun that speckled down through the trees, or too dark when the wind swayed the light away into shadow. His hair, shoulder length and wavy, seemed to hide his face as well.

“You’ve pricked yourself, dearie.”

She looked down, and, yes, she had pricked herself, a small droplet of blood beading along her thumb. She hadn’t noticed, hadn’t felt the sting of pain, still didn’t. Had she touched the rose’s thorny stem? Somehow she couldn’t remember.

“May I?” the man asked, stepping forward.

But Belle pulled her hand away before he could grasp it, dropping the petal as she did so. The low hum in her belly melted away.

“Who are you?” she asked.

The man took a step back, retreating from her question. “Well, what do I look like to you?”

His shining armor mocked his own question.

“A knight,” she said slowly, and the man bowed grandly at her deduction, that shining armor clanking with the move.

Belle couldn't see his face, but she could see that his armor was too clean. Not a speck of dust, not a smear or scrape. His cloak was worn strategically, his helmet tucked under his arm, his sword proud at his side. He didn’t look worn or weary from walking, and she could see no sign of a horse nearby. Even she, a supposed princess, traipsing about the woods for a brief walk, was ruffled and dirty. Her skirts alone were six inches deep in mud. But this creature, this man, had nary a mote on his boot.

“You're no knight,” she concluded, quiet and simple, and he raised his eyebrows.

“Then what am I, pray tell?” he said, cocking his head to the side. He smiled with one half of his mouth, a menacing and silly thing, and yes, there, now she could see his face. And his teeth, and his strange eyes.

“A sorcerer,” she said, raising her chin.

The man’s strange smile deepened, and his knight’s armor disappeared. It happened in a flash, lightning and quick, like the sun briefly illuminating the world with a peek from behind a cloud. Before her now stood a man wrapped in leathers and a dragon hide coat, elaborate and ornate.

His face no longer obscured by light or shadow, she studied him openly. His wicked mouth, sharp nose, and large, reptilian eyes. His skin was an unnatural hue, his fingertips stained black. A strange creature, wiry and handsome, his movements confident and sly.

“Did the rose summon you?” Belle asked, chin still raised.

The man rose from his bow and clasped his hands behind his back. His grin curled deeper yet. _Clever thing_ , the grin said. “No, dearie, the rose summoned _you_.”

Belle’s chest fluttered, and her throat felt tight. “You use flowers in the road to entice girls to you?”

“Not just mere girls, dearie, but _you_.”

That flutter, again. “ . . . me, specifically?”

“Oh, yes.”

A princess, she thought. “And what do you want from me?”

“A kiss,” he said simply, and he started to walk around her slowly, and she turned to follow his gaze so her back wouldn’t face him. “For a spell I'm casting. One that is freely, willingly given.”

Belle’s cheeks reddened against her will, and she tried to compensate by releasing her cloak.

“Who are you?” she asked again.

“You’ve already deduced what I am.”

“Yes, but a ‘what’ is not a ‘who’.”

 _Clever_ , his smile said again, his eyebrows nearly reprimanding her. A jump in his step as he sauntered around her in slow circles seemed to indicate that this was all a game for him, one he was enjoying immensely.

“I could tell you my name,” he said, another jump in his step, “but it’d be more fun for you to guess, don’t you think? Besides,” he said, suddenly sweeping in closer. “What know you of sorcerers?”

She opened her mouth to speak, but decided not to give in to the taunt. That flutter in her chest, she had to blink it away, had to focus. Guess, he had said.

“Maleficent?” she said.

He scoffed. “The Dragon Queen? Do I look like a woman to you?”

His slim frame and flamboyant style challenged his denial, and she nearly said as much, but that would have been too close to admitting she liked the way he looked, so she kept up with their game.

“Oz?”

“ _Oz?_ ” he laughed. “That’s a land, not a name!”

Belle bit her lip and scrunched her nose, trying to dig, trying to remember.

“The Yellow King?” she guessed.

He paused, giving her a funny look, then rolled his eyes. “Do I look yellow to you? Three guesses and you’re out!” he sang, hand in the air, gesture wild and grand. “Though I’ll give you . . . one last try! Seeing as I need that kiss.”

And he drew closer still, and her face reddened brighter. She looked down at her thumb, at that bead of blood that had gathered there, and smeared it with her finger.

“Merlin?” she said one last time, though she knew it was wrong.

The strange, wicked man shook his head, though his smile remained. It seemed unable to leave his face, unable to fade or grow smaller.

He set himself square in front of her, his dance having come to an end. His scent overwhelmed her, earthy and fine. “They know me in these parts as . . . are you ready now, clever thing? _The Dark One_.”

He stated the title like a prize, though she hardly felt like she’d won.

 _The Dark One._ It was a name she knew, and it drew her closer to another name, one last name, one she would have stumbled upon eventually.

“Yes, I know you . . . the Dark One . . . you're Rumplestiltskin!”

And _oh_ , how he hadn't heard his name on another's tongue in such a long time! It pulled at him, a funny summons, as the one requesting him was right in front of him.

“You’ve heard of me?” he asked, his astonishment poorly masked, his game briefly interrupted with his own wonder.

Belle tried to hide the pleasant burn she felt at his awe, tried not to let her pride trip her up. “They say you're a deal maker. What are you proposing in return for my kiss?” Saying it aloud made her chest flutter further, and she averted her gaze, needing the moment to recover.

“Can’t make a deal this time, I’m afraid,” he tutted, a finger wagging in her face, bringing her gaze back to him. He stepped forward, nearly brushing her shoulder, and his strange walk around her resumed. “Can’t exchange the kiss for anything other than your genuine desire to kiss me back.”

Belle’s brow wrinkled to her nose. Had he meant to tempt her by disguising himself as a knight, then? Did he really think every woman swooned so easily at the sight of armor and swords?

“Well,” Belle said, licking her lips. “Do _you_ want to kiss me?”

Rumplestiltskin stopped his saunter, and returned to face her, quirking a brow.

“Of course I want to. For my spell.”

“But do you want to kiss _me_? Was I simply the first maiden you stumbled across? Or does your spell call for someone specific? I'm not truly a princess, if that's what you're after.”

“I know what you are,” he said, and she wondered at his meaning. “Just a kiss, willingly given.”

“Willingly given,” she mused, that phrase he kept repeating. “Well, then, you have to be willing too, yes?”

“Hmm?”

“I think in order for the spell to work, you have to be willing, too,” she repeated. “And you ought not have disguised yourself. What if deceit in obtaining the kiss had tainted the spell?”

“What do you know of magic?” he asked, annoyed.

“Just what I've read in books.”

“You can read?” he sing-songed.

“Of course I can read,” she said, her turn to be annoyed.

“Then you know princesses don’t kiss sorcerers.”

“They kiss knights?”

He waved a hand in front of himself, indicating, _yes_ , _that’s usually the procedure._

“Princesses kiss knights,” she said, spelling out the meaning he’d offered her. “I’m not a princess.”

“Not by birth, you mean? I’m aware of your father’s conquest of the kingdom. Of the, shall we say, _title_ , he bestowed upon you when he took the castle.”

She bristled at his simple description, his plain tale of her father’s ambitions. She’d grown up in these lands, but never thought her father foolish enough to try and make them his own. She worried about his thirst for power, and how that thirst was starting to turn an eye to the north where the ogres roamed. The whole thing smelled of trouble, had stank for quite some time.

“My father,” she started, but couldn’t get the words out. “I’m not a princess,” she repeated instead, to herself this time, but Rumplestiltskin and his dance noticed.

“You look like one. Skin as fair as snow, lips as red as blood.”

“You’ve already bloodied me,” she said, bringing her thumb to her mouth now, a gentle suck, and he watched the motion with interest. “And you’re thinking of Snow White, who lives in a different kingdom altogether.”

He tutted at her again, and reached for her hand again, for her bloody thumb, and she let him this time. He held it up, studied her small prick where his rose had bitten her.

“Was it my blood that summoned you?” Belle asked, quiet. “When your rose pricked me?”

“Your lips,” he said, and he took the liberty to touch her mouth with a black finger. “When you brought the petal up, just so.”

Belle trembled, and her face couldn’t possibly get any redder now. “You felt my lips when they touched the petals? They called to you?”

“As my rose called to you,” he smiled, that same wicked grin he’d been carrying this whole time.

“What spell will you use my kiss for?” she asked, and was he weaving one now? This strange, handsome man.

“What know you of spells?” he asked, and that was no answer.

“Will anyone come to harm?” she asked.

“My clever thing worried about a little death and bloodshed, is she?” he asked.

“Are you teasing me?”

He tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, and surely, surely, he was doing something to her with his gentle touch. She blinked, and blinked again.

“No one will come to harm. Kisses make for sweet spells, don’t you know?”

“Why me, if it matters not that I’m a princess?”

And he didn’t answer, and the way he looked at her, the way his eyes seemed to grow larger, the way she seemed to fall inside them, a pulsing and gentle swirl, and she saw something, something gold, something red, she saw -

“Have we met before?” she asked.

“We have not,” he said, and for a moment it seemed he had fallen as well. “But I believe we shall meet again.”

Now, when had his hands settled about her? A strange man she had retreated from just moments before, now she found herself warm and glowing in the circle of his arms, and a look to his face said that something was glowing in him too. He seemed hyperaware of the sensation, slightly uncomfortable with it. But his hands flexed where they rest on her back, her shoulders, and she let her own palm rest against his chest, against that ornate clothing of his.

“I’ll ask once, dearie, and take your answer in its finality. Are you willing to kiss me?”

Her palm burned where it lay. “I am . . . but you still haven’t really answered me,” she said. “Are _you_ willing?”

“Is the dark and impish sorcerer willing to kiss the virginal flushing sprite in his arms? Are you really asking, sweetling?”

“No, no. Not the sorcerer and the  . . . sprite, but us, truly. Belle and Rumplestiltskin.”

Ah, she said his name again, and how it moved him!

“Stop teasing,” she continued. “And answer me honestly.”

“Lovely, clever creature,” he murmured. “Pretty face, pretty mind, pretty lips. Clever, clever. I’m willing, yes.”

She nodded, licked her lips, tried to hide her tremble. “This will be my first. My first kiss. Does that do anything for your spell, make it any better?”

“No,” he said. “But I feel honored, nevertheless.”

“Are you still teasing me?”

“Perhaps,” and he leaned in, grasping her gently about the waist before pulling her tighter into him. Surely bringing their chests together, or his hips in contact with hers, wasn’t required for the kiss.

He looked at her lips before touching them with his. A quick blink, a quick wet of his lips, and he was tilting his head. His nose nuzzled her cheek, and then his lips were on hers, gentle and pressing. She knew it was coming, they’d discussed it at length, but the feeling was still surprising, pleasant in its warmth.

She thought he’d merely peck her and withdraw, but when his lips started to pluck, she felt hers pluck in return. A quiet dance, smooth and easy, natural, and she felt that stir in her belly again, but this time it felt deeper and lower and like it truly came from herself rather than an enchanted rose.

His plucking slowed, and he concluded the kiss with a long and deep press before pulling away. He remained terribly close, so much so that when he licked his lips in a slow turn he effectively licked her in the process. It made her stomach flip. They were no longer kissing, but he didn’t move away, and she could feel the cool ghost of his breath along her mouth and face. Her nose accidentally dragged his lower lip when he lifted his head, and rest his cheek against her forehead.

“Thank you, dearie,” he whispered, and she only just noticed the small vial he held between them. However he collected their kiss, she wasn’t sure, but he was pressing a cork into the vial gently with his thumb, and smiling triumphantly. The tiny bottle glowed warm and quiet between them and yes, that was exactly how this feeling would look.

 _Thank you,_ she wanted to say, or _You’re welcome_ , but words felt like silly, flimsy things right now.

He stepped away, his warmth gone and the feeling of its retreat was abrupt and unwelcome. The strange sorcerer Rumplestiltskin whom she’d just allowed to kiss her stood a few paces back, hand raised like he was about to summon his own exit, and Belle needed something, needed to prolong this for a moment more before it’s realness faded away into the feeling of being just another book she’d read, or another stroll she’d taken.

“Wait,” she started, and was that a smile tempting his lips? “You said . . . you said you believe we shall meet again?”

It was a smile, curling with something not quite wicked this time, but deep and just as affected as she.

“Undoubtedly, dearie.”

And he disappeared in a cloud of purple, his smile lingering for a second longer than the rest of him as the smoke dissipated, and hadn’t she read about a cat who could do the same thing? In her hand the rose suddenly appeared, no longer covered in thorns. The head of the rose rest in her palm, its size just as weighty as she first imagined it would be.

She brought the full thing to her mouth, the dark red soft and inviting, and with a wicked smile of her own, brushed the petals to her lips.


End file.
